years across private banking, fiduciary work and family advisory
The Firm
Independent by design.
Adamas Advisors is a principal-led international partnership of independent senior advisers for families, founders and family offices whose affairs have outgrown informal coordination.
One perspective across the whole structure.
Most wealthy families are not short of advisers. They are short of someone able to see how the advice, structures, people and decisions fit together.
Adamas was established to provide that perspective. We work alongside lawyers, tax advisers, trustees, banks and investment managers, without competing for their specialist roles. Our task is to help the principal or family define the objective, test whether the structure serves it and keep the wider system aligned.
Review the mandates Adamas undertakes, including Strategic Advisory, work with family offices and support for trustees and fiduciaries. Professional advisers considering a referral can read how Adamas works alongside established advisers.
Experience
international families advised since 2005
institutional perspectives: private banking, trusteeship and independent counsel
Founder and Principal
Alexander von der Vellen is an Anglo-Austrian adviser, author and former private banker. Following service as a British Army officer, he joined Barings and later held senior positions at JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank.
He left institutional private banking in 2005, first to manage his own family’s real-estate interests and establish a single-family office, before continuing his independent advisory work. This gave him principal-side as well as institutional experience of family governance, international structures and long-term wealth oversight. His books on trusteeship, stewardship, private banking and the human consequences of wealth reflect the same conviction that guides Adamas: enduring wealth depends less upon complexity than upon clarity of purpose, sound judgement and people prepared for responsibility.
Adamas is principal-led and partnership-based. Alexander remains directly accountable for each relationship, while independent senior advisers in Prague, London, New York, Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo operate through their own established practices and collaborate under the Adamas umbrella where their combined judgement can better serve the client. The Adamas intellectual property and platform are owned by an Andorran company, which is not an office.
Explore the thinking that informs this work.
How we work
Close enough to understand. Independent enough to challenge.
Principal-led
The Principal provides direct senior judgement, continuity and a clear point of accountability throughout the mandate.
Partnership-based
Independent partners collaborate under the Adamas umbrella where their combined expertise can create a better result, while retaining their professional autonomy.
Purpose-led
Structures and governance begin with the family’s real objectives, not with a preferred jurisdiction, product or institutional solution.
Long-term
Where continuity matters, Adamas remains alongside the family as responsibilities, people and circumstances change.
A confidential first conversation